Ask a Manager: I'm Starting To Hate My Customers

[minoanmiss]

I work in telephone based collections for a credit card and loan provider, I work in telephone based collections for a credit card and loan provider, but increasingly I’m getting frustrated by the attitude of the customers we deal with. I find myself uncharitably thinking that they’re lucky that we are willing to work with them to craft repayment plans as opposed to sending them straight to debt collectors.

Intellectually, I know there are a vast array of complex reasons why people fall into debt but it’s difficult to bear in mind when speaking to customers who have taken out dozens of pieces of technology on credit and they’re not able to repay these. They get frustrated and annoyed with us, and feel that we are treating them unfairly. Yet it is money they have borrowed from us and they are not able to repay it, I would hope my attitude doesn’t come through on the phone calls but I fear that my lack of patience is starting to show.

Try to keep in mind that you can’t know a stranger’s circumstances. You’re just seeing one very small piece of the picture with limited info. You don’t know if the person you’re talking to had an unexpected medical crisis, or a divorce, or lost their job, or all sorts of other things that can change a person’s financial situation without warning. But even if they did make bad financial decisions, a lot of people don’t get good (or any) financial education in this country, and credit cards companies employ armies of people to convince consumers they can afford to put purchases on credit.

Are there some people who are just flagrantly irresponsible deadbeats? Sure. But you have no way of knowing if you’re talking to one of them, or if you’re talking to someone who had a personal crisis blow their life up. You’ll do a better job — and be a generally kinder person — if you default to assuming it’s the latter, not the former. (If that doesn’t work, another trick: How would you want a bill collector to talk to someone you loved? Talk to them the way you’d hope someone else would talk to your grandma.)